In that game that it got past round 1, it ended up getting 56 points overall.

Doubled its score in just a few minutes.  If I can keep on this rate of improvement, it’ll be awesome in no time!

Okay, now just 2993 more points to go for the prize!

The computer can now tell you where to go.

Bombs that will be caught by the buckets in their current position turn green, bombs that will be missed turn red.  If the buckets will catch the lowest bomb, they turn green, otherwise they’re pink and give you a pointer as to how far you need to move and in which direction.  If there are no bombs detected, the buckets turn white.

lol0rZ.

I think the blacker points are the closer matches to the image.  I told it to find the bombs, and it looks like it managed to find them all.  I think.

Either that or my Atari is possessed.

I have a lot of bizarre joysticks and controllers for all sorts of game systems.

Thankfully, I was able to find what I was looking for.

Now, does it work…?

Each Crazy Weekend Project has a crazy goal they’re aiming for.  The first was to get a perfect game in Pong.  The second was to eliminate Wesley Crusher.  For this one, it’s joining the Bucket Brigade.

Part of what set Activision apart, aside from making awesome games, was that for pretty much every game, you could get a patch to prove that you’d obtained some high score.  Just snap a picture of your score, mail it in, and a few weeks later, you’d get three inch trophy to commemorate your achievement for free.  Some games had multiple patches for different difficulty levels.

For Kaboom!, you could get the Activision Bucket Brigade patch for a score of 3000 or higher.  To reach this level, you had to be good, but you didn’t have to be perfect.  An ordinary player would be able to get this score, given enough practice.

My primary goal for this weekend is to build a robot capable of getting a score in Kaboom! that will qualify it to join the Bucket Brigade.  I’ll then send a picture in to Activision and see what happens…

The spirit of these patches lives on in the XBox 360 and PS3.  Games for those systems feature Achievements or Trophies which you get for doing something specific in the game.  However, instead of having just one, games will typically have up to 50.  And, unfortunately, they’re all electronic, so you can’t show them off.

Pong is not enough.

The Atari Robot is bored.  Pong is undeniably a classic game, but it’s classic in the same way Shakespeare is.  Everyone looks at it and praises it, but they really want nothing to do with it because it’s so old and dull.  Back and forth, back and forth.  For hours.  Even to lose a game takes twenty minutes sometimes.  And it’s not really pushing anything to the limit.

The Atari Robot wanted more out of life.

At first, it talked at great length about a kitten object that it had fallen in love with and wanted to search the world for.  For a time, this plan was compelling, however, my apartment is strictly full of non-kitten objects, and acquiring a kitten-object for this endeavor would not have been wise.

Atari Robot was sad.

It looked around at other famous robots.  There’s the robots that build cars, but there’s no romance or excitement in that.  Then it found what it wanted to be.  One of the most well known uses of robots in the world today is in bomb disposal.  Excitement and adventure, becoming a bomb disposal robot would be sure to make all the female Atari Robots fall for him.  However, my apartment is strictly full of non-explosive objects, and acquiring an explosive object for this endeavor would not have been wise.

Atari Robot was sad.

Then I realized that there was a way for Atari Robot to live its dream and keep all my fingers and not get arrested.  I have a bomb disposal simulator that Atari Robot could use.  Atari Robot could join the Bucket Brigade to stop the Mad Bomber!

Atari Robot was happy.